Virginia Commonwealth University has announced gifts totaling $2.1 million from the Harry and Harriet Grandis Family Foundation in support of scholarships and cancer research at the VCU School of Medicine.

The foundation awarded $1 million to endow the Harry and Harriet Grandis Scholarship Fund, which will provide a full scholarship for one in-state medical student, while the balance of the gift will be used to endow a chaired faculty position at the VCU Massey Cancer Center and establish a fund for lung cancer research that will be named in memory of the couple's daughter, Linda Grandis Blatt, who succumbed to lung cancer in 2006.

Scholarships for medical students were a priority for Harry and Harriet Grandis, who in the 1990s began making annual gifts to the VCU medical school to fully cover tuition for deserving students. "In their lifetimes, Harry and Harriet Grandis took a sincere and personal interest in giving our medical students the best possible start in their careers," said VCU School of Medicine dean Jerome Strauss III, M.D., Ph.D. "Their family has now ensured that Harry and Harriet’s generosity and dedication to society will continue. Generations of future physicians will graduate free of tuition debt and go on to care for patients in Virginia and all over the United States. This gift establishes an enduring legacy."